Citizen Comment:
Almost everyone speaking was local small business owners who are salty about Buc-ee’s asking for a $3.2 million rebate. They observe that, collectively, they create a lot of jobs, and yet none of them have been offered a proportional rebate.
I can understand their frustration! Much to discuss. Stay tuned.
Item 1: The Dunbar and Heritage District Area Plan
You’ve heard about VisionSMTX literally for years. (Discussed here, here, here, here, here, and here.) We’re neck-deep in getting it approved.
There’s a side-hustle to VisionSMTX, which are the Area Plans. What this means is that a neighborhood get to decide what makes it special, and then enshrine that special magic spark into the city code. This can be done well – “preserve these historical structures! More sidewalks!” – or it can be done poorly – “Create obstacles that keep poor people out! Micromanage everyone’s business!”
The first Area Plan is up! Here’s the boundary:
It’s a combined region that’s supposed to cover both the Historic District and the Dunbar neighborhood.
At P&Z, they recommended two big changes:
- Split Dunbar and the Historic District into two separate Area Plans
- Hold off until the Comp Plan is approved.
Splitting the two neighborhoods is a very good idea, given the historical legacy: one of these neighborhoods traditionally got all the resources, and the other was generally short-changed. Making Dunbar the focus of its own plan seems healthy to me.
Council is also on board with both of these changes. So these new split Area Plans will now go back to the residents for revising.
…
Item 15: LIHTC Housing
LIHTC stands for Low Income Housing Tax Credits. Apartment complexes can apply for tax breaks if they provide low-income housing and access to social services.
Usually these are new complexes being built. But this time, it’s an existing complex:
These are the River View apartments, in Blanco Gardens.
One note: River View apartments is directly across from the stupid Woods apartments, which is now called Redpoint, as though they can escape my anger by changing their name.
Presumably “River View Apartments” was so named, because it used to have a view of the river, before The Woods was built, and they should probably rename themselves “Apartment View Apartments” now. But that would be too grim.
Anyway: there’s 54 units, of which 40 are Section 8 housing. They were bought by a new owner two years ago who wants to use LIHTC funding to renovate them.
Council asks good questions!
Mayor Hughson: Will anyone be displaced by the renovations?
Answer: Temporarily, yes, but no one will lose their housing. We’ll cover moving costs to a different unit or to a hotel during renovations. This is a HUD requirement.
Mark Gleason: Why is it so vacant right now?
Answer: It’s 30% vacant, because the units were in such bad shape that we weren’t allowed to rent them until we fixed them up. We’re about to get approval from HUD to start renting them.
Saul Gonzales: Are there enough washers and dryers? And are they priced affordably?
Answer: We’re required to have 1 set per 10 apartments, and we’ve got 6 sets, so we’re good. On the pricing, we’ll blandly demur.
Alyssa Garza: Are the wraparound services old or new? What mechanism do you have to make sure you’re not just going to under-advertise and phase out services due to low participation?
Answer: They’re new. HUD requires us to replace services that we phase out.
Council isn’t spending any money here. They’re just voting on whether to support the owner’s LIHTC application to the state. It’s basically just a vote of confidence.
The vote:
CLICKERS!!
The San Marxist 